Under Abnormal Conditions (5 page)

“We were friends and I dated her daughter.” I
answered. Call me crazy, but somehow I knew telling the police I
didn’t get along with the murder victim would have been a
mistake.

“How did you get along with her?”

“Things were okay. I hope you don’t think I,
. . .” I left dangling for him to finish.

“Not at all. I just needed to talk to you
before I could finish my report. Did these guys look at that?” he
asked pointing to my head.

The pain on the back of my head had been
throbbing since I woke up, but I had almost forgotten it until the
detective brought it back to my attention. Glad for the change in
the subject, I took the ice pack from the desk and placed it back
on my bruise. I winced as the pain shot through my body. Maybe it
was worse than I thought. “Yeah, they wanted me to go get X-rays,
but I don’t know.”

“That’s all I need for tonight. You probably
need to get to the hospital. There are just a few more things.
Maybe you can come by the station tomorrow?”

I didn’t plan on going to the hospital, but
if he was willing to let me go I wasn’t going to argue. “I’ll be
there first thing in the morning.”

“If you remember anything before I see you
again, call me,” he said, handing me his business card. He then
left the office closing the door. The detective almost ran into
Phil as he was walking into the lounge. They stopped for a moment
and talked. Williams looked over in my direction. When he saw me
looking out the window, he turned his back to me and finished his
conversation. That action alone worried me more than anything else
did.

Flashbulbs lit up the dark night as I walked
out of the club. The parking lot, which was a vacant lot across the
street, was covered with news trucks and reporters. That section of
Summer Street was closed so the second I walked outside, they
accosted me.

“Can you tell us what happened, sir?

“Where were you at the time of the
murder?”

“Did you know the victim?”

I fought my way through the throng without
saying anything. Before I reached my car, the detectives were
walking out so the reporters quickly turned their fickle attention
towards them, all of them but one.

If I hadn’t been parked under one of the
streetlights, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed her. She leaned
against my car wearing a dark blue embroidered silk business suit
with a high collar and vest that pointed down to her
unbusiness-like short skirt.

“Can I help with something?” I asked the
beautiful woman. She had big, brown eyes, and her long, straight
hair was slicked back into a ponytail.

“Can I ask you a few questions about what
happened here tonight?” she asked as commonly as if we were
discussing the weather.

I turned and looked at the mob surrounding
the officers and asked, “Why didn’t you go with the rest of
them?”

“Because you are the story. What can they
tell me that you can’t?”

“I can’t tell you anything. I don’t remember
what happened,” I said as I took out my car keys.

“Where are my manners?” she said as she moved
away from the car and held out her hand. “My name is Sharon Bryant,
and I’m with WBRE Action 2 news.”

“Michael Drake,” I said as I shook her hand.
Her hand was soft, and she smelled sweet. I was a fool for a woman
who smelled good.

Still holding my hand she said, “It’s so nice
to meet you. You know if you talk about what you do remember, maybe
something will come back to you.”

“I don’t know,” I said as I placed the ice
pack the paramedics had given me back on my head. “My head is
killing me, and I need to get some rest.”

“Do you think you may feel up to talking
tomorrow?”

“Sure, I’ll try, but that’s all I can
do.”

She frowned and released my hand. She then
reached into her purse. Quickly, she pulled out a business card.
“This is my card. If you remember anything, just give me a call.
Anytime.”

I knew she wasn’t happy with my answer, but
there was nothing else for me to do. She jumped into the fray along
with the others. I wished I did have more information, but I felt
as out of touch as Rip Van Winkle.

Behind the detectives, the media had set up
powerful lights. When they flashed on, they blinded me for an
instant. My head continued to throb and pound. I looked down at my
keys to unlock the door and my eyes started to lose focus. My head
started spinning, and I could barely stand.

I closed my eyes and dropped to one knee. My
stomach started to churn, and salty liquid filled my mouth. I
turned away from my car and fell to all fours. My midsection
cramped as if there were a set of vise grips tightening around my
ribs. Relief finally came when I vomited across the parking
lot.

When I finished I leaned back against my car.
An eerie yellowish haze surrounded everywhere I looked. I felt like
I was trapped in a fog.

I don’t know how long I sat there. When I
finally did get in my car, I went straight to the hospital. The
beaming headlights from the oncoming cars made my head pound even
worse. I began to think I should have let the paramedics drive
me.

It was a little after midnight when I drove
into the parking lot of the Columbia Medical Center. The last time
I was there, I was being rolled out in a wheelchair.

I found a spot relatively close to the
entrance and slowly walked towards the doors. I could feel tiny
beads of sweat building on my forehead. My stomach felt like it was
rubbing against my backbone as I walked through the emergency room
doors. The florescent lights made me wince as I searched for a
place to check in.

A small, unconcerned nurse staffed the
admission desk. As she murdered a stick of chewing gum, she barely
looked up as she handed me a clipboard with what looked like an
inch thick stack of paperwork attached to it.

After about twenty minutes, I gave the
clipboard back and waited in my seat to be called. I used my
melting ice pack as a pillow and rested against the hard plastic
chair. I closed my eyes to shield them from the bright,
unrelenting, fluorescent lights. I was almost lulled to sleep by
the hum of the hospital’s lifesaving machines.

As the night wore on, there were scores of
accident victims being rolled in with sorrowful family members in
tow. I felt like I was the only one there alone.

By the time the clock read one o’clock, I
seriously questioned whether or not I should have even been there.
At about that time my name was called.

The bespectacled male nurse led me through
the swinging doors that led to the emergency room. He was a
ruggedly built white man with a military style crew cut. I sat on a
small cold metal table and he began asking me questions.

“What seems to be the problem today?” he
asked without looking up from my chart.

“I’ve got a bump on the head,” I answered and
wondered why he didn’t bother to look at the mound of paper work
that was in front of him.

“OK, just let me take a look at it,” he said
as he pulled a pair of surgical gloves from the front pocket of his
scrubs and stepped behind me. “Hmmm. What happened here, Mr.
Drake?”

“I wish that I knew.”

Surprisingly, his touch was far more gentle
than his appearance.

“Yeah, that’s nasty,” he said, as if he
hadn’t heard my answer. “We may need to do a CAT scan.”

“Is a kitten scan any cheaper?” I joked.

He ignored my sad attempt at humor and
answered, “The doctor will be in with you shortly.” He snapped the
gloves from his hands and walked away, drawing the curtain behind
him.

The cloth walls didn’t give my neighbors much
privacy. To my left there was an older lady who was there because
of shortness of breath. The doctor didn’t seem to want to waste his
time and quickly ordered a breathing treatment for her. Her husband
complained it had never worked before. The doctor then asked if the
lady had stopped smoking. Their only reply was a few seconds of
silence followed by a burst of excuses.

To my right, a family sat waiting to hear the
fate of their three-year-old son. It seemed he was playing on the
balcony of the apartment complex where they lived and fell through
the guardrail. The grief stricken couple blamed each other with
probing questions about how it could have happened and where the
other was when it happened.

Soon enough the doctor brought them relief.
The boy would be fine and wouldn’t suffer any permanent damage. I
could hear the relief in his mother’s sobbing. They graciously
thanked the doctor and apologized to each through tears of joy.

The curtain slid back and the doctor stepped
in and asked, “Hello, Michael. I’m Doctor Harris, how are you
feeling?”

“Like I was hit on the head with something
heavy.”

He smiled and approached me. The doctor was a
tall white gentleman with graying hair and a beard to match.

“Do you know what hit you?” he asked with a
powerful voice.

“I don’t know. I was in an accident.”

Puzzled he asked, “A car accident?”

“No.” I didn’t want to elaborate any farther
and I hoped he would stop his questioning. He didn’t.

“Do you know how hard it is to treat someone
who won’t tell me what is wrong with them?” he admonished.

“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to. I
can’t.” I said, as the pain intensified, and my patience waned. “I
was hit over the head during a robbery, and I really don’t know
what happened.”

With wary eyes, he asked, “Did you report
this robbery to the police?”

“They are the ones who told me to come in and
get checked out.”

Satisfied with the answer, he took out a pad
from his pristine white lab coat and began scribbling on it. “How
is your vision?”

“It’s a little hazy.”

He ripped the paper from the pad handed it to
me and said, “It appears you have a slight concussion. Here is
something for pain, but you can’t take it tonight. In fact, you
need to make sure you don’t go to sleep for at least twenty-four
hours.”

“You are going to give me a prescription that
is going to knock me out and help with the pain, but I can’t take
it.”

He smiled and said, “Head trauma is a very
tricky thing. If you go to sleep for an extended period of time you
could slip into a coma and die.”

“Sleep is overrated anyway.”

“Well, after the twenty-four hours are up you
can go to sleep, but someone needs to wake you up every two hours
for the next day or so.”

“Am I okay to go?”

“Yeah, go ahead. You might want to schedule
an appointment with your regular doctor and get him to do a CAT
scan.”

He then reached into his pocket and pulled
out a card.

“Here is my card. Have him call me if he has
any questions.”

I thanked him and took the card as if I had a
regular doctor. I couldn’t remember seeing any doctor other than my
orthopedic surgeon since I was in high school.

As I passed through the waiting room, it
seemed the same sallow, haggard faces were sitting there. After
saying a quick prayer to myself for the patients in emergency, I
was on my way.

Never being a big fan of pills, I threw the
prescription in the trash after I walked out the door. Even though
my head still pounded like an earthquake, I would never have
imagined how good it would feel to walk out of the hospital on my
own two feet.

Instead of taking the interstate, I decided
to trail the back roads home. It was just after four o’clock and
surely the police would have all of the major roadways staked out
for drunk drivers.

I was a few blocks away from home when I
decided to stop and get an over the counter pain reliever. There
was a Quick Stop gas station one street over from my own, so I
pulled in there.

I parked my car and walked to the front door,
but it was locked. I could see someone behind the counter so I
knocked on the door a few times to get her attention.

She waved her hand and pointed to the window
next to her. “What you need?” said the chubby, black girl behind
the glass.

“Do you have anything for a headache?”

“It’s too early for a hangover, honey,” she
said and reached behind her. “This works good on everything. That’s
going to be three forty-seven.”

I placed a five-dollar bill on the tray. She
spun it around and quickly returned the medicine with my change. I
thanked her, and she responded with an overexcited smile. She gave
me the tablets that dissolved in water. It wasn’t what I wanted,
but she probably knew just as much as a pharmacist on dealing with
headaches, given her sentence to the “drunk” shift.

Chapter 7

Even though I only had a block to go, the
drive home seemed to take forever. My head pounded as if there was
someone inside trying to escape. The ice I held on the back of my
head was almost melted.

My home was a blurry, but welcomed, site.
Before I could put my key in the lock, I noticed there was a slight
crack in the door. My parents lived in the house behind me so I
took a look in their yard. I knew they had left the day before for
a funeral in Mississippi, so there were no cars in their driveway.
I wanted to dismiss my paranoid thoughts, but after what had
already happened, I was extra cautious as I entered.

Once inside, there was a small foyer where I
hung my raincoat. Straight ahead, through a pair of sliding doors,
was the living room. Off to the right and up three stairs was the
dining room, which lead to the kitchen and the rest of the
house.

I had left without breakfast that morning so
hunger ruled over caution and I slowly and carefully headed for the
kitchen. Just looking inside that empty three hundred pound
icemaker made me wish I were still married. I didn’t know which was
worse, going back to an empty bed or to an empty refrigerator.